Sovereignty is the channel’s next trust test Data sovereignty has become a key channel priority The UK government’s £1.1bn AI sovereignty plan has put infrastructure control firmly on the boardroom agenda. With £750m earmarked for a national AI supercomputer and further funding for domestic chip capability, the message is clear: sovereignty has moved way past an abstract policy debate. It is now a practical test of how much control the UK has over the compute, data, networks, and suppliers that increasingly underpin its economy. That question is affecting the channel, too, particularly as major cyber incidents have sharpened focus on the resilience of the networks underpinning operations. While buyers continue to care about performance and price, they are placing greater emphasis on the level of control their technology partners have over business-critical infrastructure. Security is now a commercial decision The majority (88%) of IT decision makers (ITDMs) say that UK data sovereignty is vital when choosing technology partners, according to our research. Some 70% identify cyber risk as one of their top organizational threats. Among resellers, 77% believe customers would switch providers for better protection. Cyber resilience, therefore, needs to appear early in the sales conversation, framed around operational risk, customer confidence and the confidence that businesses will be able to keep trading when threats escalate. It also needs to be communicated over time, rather than treated as a one-off assurance during procurement, with 89% of ITDMs saying they want providers to deliver proactive updates on how their networks are being protected. In short, as trust has become an even more integral part of the buying decision, partners need to move beyond headline credentials and make the delivery model behind the service much clearer. Partners must deliver across data, operations and technical control Sales conversations can set the expectation, but